An interesting adventure
by Nival Vixen
Summary: COMPLETE! Loki's on the run from Thor and Asgardian hunters, Jack's on the run from the Time Agency, and the Doctor's just running as he always does. They end up travelling together, and Loki and Jack become more than companions to each other. It's going to be an interesting adventure, one that's just begun, and they'll keep running to the bitter end. Loki/Jack, Doctor/River
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

**Summary:** Loki's on the run from Thor and Asgardian hunters, Jack's on the run from the Time Agency, and the Doctor's just running as he always does. They end up travelling together, and Loki and Jack become more than companions to each other. It's going to be an interesting adventure, one that's just begun, and they'll keep running to the bitter end. Loki/Jack, Doctor/River

**Author's note:** Welcome to the first in the 17 days of Christmas! As a special treat, I will be posting one chapter of this story every day for the next 17 days. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I have writing it.

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Prologue

...

The Doctor's running, just as he always has. This time, it isn't away from something trying to kill him. This time, he's running towards somewhere, with an actual destination in mind, and for once, his sexy TARDIS is actually letting him go there. There are no companions at his side at this moment, but his old girl's always been more than enough, and the Doctor knows she'll keep an eye out for him, even as he attaches the helmet to his head and clips the pocket watch to his vest. It's going to be a long ride to get his memories back, but he has friends on the lava-covered planet of Targos Beta, and he knows he'll be looked after. Hopes he'll be looked after, at least.

The helmet's painful as always, retracting, removing, and reducing his entire life into single files to fit within the pocket watch, but that's something he would never change, even if had the ability to do so. The pain reminds him that it's real, and that's enough for now. Before his new set of memories can take hold in his brain, he vaguely hears the TARDIS warning system, and through blurry eyes, he can see something red and flashing on one of the screens. There's no companion about, no one to stop whatever's happening, and he's on his knees screaming as something else starts to take over in his brain, rather than the set of memories he'd carefully selected...

...

Loki's running, just as he should have done from the very beginning. Making a deal with the frost giants wasn't his most brilliant idea, but after being cast out of Asgardian by his father - no, by Odin, not his father, not anymore - he'd had nowhere else to turn. He couldn't lower himself to go to Midgard, and doubted he'd be welcome there anyway after the whole invasion thing. (Really, though, it wasn't like he had a choice. It was his life or theirs, and his life was worth so much more. He's a god, for the All-Father's sake.) Behind him, he can hear a horn blowing loudly, and he knows that the hunt has begun. He just hopes that whatever damage he caused to Bifrost will delay their departure long enough for him to get to a planet outside of the Nine Worlds. After the last year or two of nothing but frost, somewhere boiling hot would be nice. Perhaps he could get a tan.

He's distracted from his thoughts as he sees something flying in the distance. It's not one of the Midgardian's shiny space vessels, he can tell that even from this far. It does have Misgardian writing on it, though, and he's curious enough to manoeuvre his body to get closer so he can read it properly. The box is blue - not really his colour - and the words relay something about police, but it's the screaming he can hear from inside that makes him curious. The horn blows again, and Loki curses both of his fathers names at the fact that he's about to be caught yet again. The screams come from inside of the box, and Loki feels that whatever presence is making that sound is ... being extracted. He knows that the hunters are getting closer, and making a split decision, Loki shrinks his own consciousness, pushing through the blue box and into the emptying mind. There's a last push of resistance, but it's too weak to do much, and the alarms and flashing lights blaring around him stop abruptly when he's settled in. The body he's taken over blacks out, and he does along with it, the physical pull too strong even for a mind like his. As his mind clouds and stills, Loki is certain that he can hear the blow of the horn in the distance.

...

If the TARDIS could express her thoughts like her passengers do, she would definitely think that this would be an interesting adventure for all of them. Still, she has to look after her Doctor, even if he may be under another's control for the moment, and the horn blasting in the distance fades as she continues her journey. Although, she doubts that Targos Beta will be prepared for a possessed Doctor just yet, and abruptly changes her course. The Doctor, when he remembers, will not mind the detour. He knows that she always takes him where he needs to be, after all.

...

End of the prologue.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Second day of the 17 days of Christmas!

**Author's note:** This story is set between part 1 and 2 of Doctor Who season 7, before the events of Torchwood (at least for Jack, not the Doctor), and after The Avengers. Hopefully this makes more sense once you've read further.

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter One

...

When Loki wakes up, it takes him a minute to remember where he is and what he's done. He sits up abruptly, immediately bangs his head on something solid and metal, and curses heavily in a few different languages. Putting a hand to his aching head, Loki sits up more carefully this time, avoids the control panel with determination, and blinks his eyes a few times to adjust to the muted light. One of the screens is flashing, and he stands to look at it properly. His reflection stares back at him, but it's not the face he's used to seeing, not at all. His hair is all ... _floppy_. And _what_ on Asgard is that around his neck?! He goes to undo the bow tie (_honestly, a bow tie!_), but some swinging part of the ship's console comes towards him abruptly. Okay then, it seems the somewhat sentient ship _likes_ the bow tie. It doesn't look half bad with this face, so he supposes it can stay. Loki walks around the console a few times, gathering a basic knowledge of the ship and how it works. According to the flashing screen, he's on New-Earth (one of them, at least) in the year 5085. Not humanity's greatest century, but he's been to far worse. (Lived through far, far worse in fact. Around the time he was being worshipped was one of them, despite the fact that he was worshipped.)

There's a sound, like an echo in his head, and his hand automatically moves for the pocket watch in his vest. He can feel the power within it, even before his hand touches the cool metal device, and abruptly withdraws his hand. _Now, now, that's **much** too soon_. He's only just arrived, and there's so much to see now that he's not being hunted. (He briefly wonders if the Asgardian hunters following him will even know he's in this century, but they have Odin on their side, so of course they will know.) A slow smile spreads across his face. They have Odin on their side, but he has a machine that can travel through space and time (one of the screens says the words TARDIS, and that tells Loki all that he needs to know. The Time Lords were a myth to Asgardians, just as Asgardians were to Midgardians, but it seems that all myths must come from some truth, at least.). He sets the controls, watching as the year changes back further and further still, stopping it abruptly with a wild grin and wave of his arm. A bit more dramatic than he's used to, but muscle memory is what it is, and the motions seem to work with this body and pointy-chinned face. He waits for something to happen, some noise, a feeling of movement, the usual telltale signs that something is finally going right in his life for once, but there's nothing. Not a single thing. Well, there's flashing from one of the screens, but Loki thinks that's just the ship laughing at him. He goes over to read the flashing, and he's probably right, as the words read: _TARDIS stuck in rift. Unable to move. Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day_.

It's laughing at him, he knows it is. Loki yells and shouts at the thing, presses more buttons, flips more switches, wrenches levers and even tries to kick the console (that swingy thing comes towards him again, so he doesn't complete the motion, his foot just hanging there, mere centimetres away from the console until he backs away awkwardly), but still, nothing happens. He finally gives in, realising he's wasting too much time yelling when he should be finding a - _a what, TARDIS mechanic? Do they even **exist?**_ - whatever or whomever to help him, and that means leaving the ship. Leaving the ship means that his brother and the Asgardian hunters will find him. But he'll also be leaving with this face (_and the ridiculous bow tie, but let's not mutter that too loudly_, he thinks to himself, glancing to the console again), and that might just be his salvation.

Loki pulls on the brown jacket hanging by the door, has a weird impulse to straighten his bow tie, and steps out of the TARDIS, only to be met by a man with loose brown hair and a wide grin. The man introduces himself as Jack Harkness, and seems completely unabashed by the fact that he's also naked.

...

End of the first chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Third day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Two

...

Loki spins on his heel (again, muscle memory being what it is and all that), and sees that he's in a bathroom. The TARDIS has somehow brought him to a _bathroom_ on a Midgardian planet, over 3000 years in the future, and is now stuck there. He wonders if the ship has some sort of perverted fascination with future bathrooms (and not very good ones, at that), or if this man is meant to mean something to her. _Uh, it, the ship, not her_.

Jack's still standing there with his hand outstretched, but Loki doesn't know _where_ it's been, and refuses to touch a Midgardian mortal if he can help it. Jack doesn't seem offended and just shrugs, withdraws his hand, and walks out of the bathroom, heading to his room to get dressed. Loki tries to get back into the TARDIS - _to try to repair the damn thing himself, to hide, who cares, so long as he isn't standing in this All-Father forsaken bathroom?_ - only to find that the door is locked and refuses to open.

Stuck as he is in the bathroom, Loki's faced with nothing more than his wrong reflection, and he can't seem to look away. More worryingly, he's actually starting to think the bow tie looks _good_ the longer he sees it. He turns abruptly and goes to the bedroom that Jack had entered, walking in just as the other man finishes pulling on a shirt. On his wrist is a Time Agent device, holding a vortex manipulator, and that probably explains why he wasn't screaming and hysterical at the sight of a ship materialising out of nowhere in the middle of his bathroom. _Well, at least he can get out of here with that thing, even if the TARDIS refuses to move_, Loki reasons with himself. He moves forward, ready to cast an illusion, or even just kill Jack in order to get the device, but there's another echo in his mind, and his hand moves to his pocket again. Not the pocket watch this time, but a weird stick thing that glows, and he presses a button on it without even having to think. A green light (now that's more his style) flashes at Jack, and the tiny screen reveals something _very_ interesting. The Jack that stands before him doesn't actually belong to this year. Jack isn't actually born yet - there's still at least 9 years before he'll be born, and many more years before he'll reach this physical age. Jack just grins at him when he queries this, and mentions that he's living here so he won't cross his own timeline. The Time Agency have yet to find him (Loki's not the only one on the run, it seems), and he'd like to keep it that way. The TARDIS might have attracted the Time Agency's attention, but as he lives on top of a rift, the presence of one time machine probably won't cause too much alarm.

Loki doesn't care about any of that, he just cares about getting out of here before the Asgardian hunters show up, and he tries to cast a spell of illusion. It's a simple trick, one he's performed hundreds of times before, but today, it's not working. The body shouldn't matter - the physical realm has never interfered with his power, no matter who or what shape he takes - but apparently, this _rift_ can affect his powers too. He swears softly under his breath. Jack claps him on the back and he jolts at the sudden and unexpected contact, even as Jack tells him that he's not the only one stuck here.

Loki stalks back to the TARDIS as best he can in this body (he feels like he lopes rather than stalks, but the stern set of his mouth will have to do), and the door actually opens for him this time. He sits in the console room and internally plots his escape. He does not sulk.

...

End of the second chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Fourth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Three

...

Jack's surprised by the TARDIS' appearance - _how could he not be, after everything he's learnt about Time Lords at the Academy?_ - but the man inside the box seems more surprised to see _him_. Actually, he seems kind of annoyed to see him, as if he'd been expecting something, someone, somewhere, or even somewhen else. Jack can't really blame him, but hey, he wasn't the one that materialised in **his** bathroom. Besides, Jack knows the perfect cure for disappointment like this, and after a few minutes of searching through his tiny kitchen for a shot glass, Jack's knocking on the TARDIS door with two hypervodkas in hand. If it's not the cure for disappointment, then it'll sure as hell make the Time Lord forget why he was annoyed in the first place. Maybe he'll at least look at Jack like he wasn't something foul squished under his Time Lordy boot. His name might also be helpful, so he wouldn't have to keep referring to him - even internally - as Time Lord.

Loki glares at the door when it opens for Jack easily, and when he sees the neon-coloured drink in the minuscule glasses, he wants to scoff. He comes from a land where mead is served to children straight out of the womb (maybe a slight exaggeration, but then, judging from Thor's almost constant-stupidity, perhaps not), and if the Midgardian thinks that a tiny drink such as that one is going to do _anything_ to him, then he's as stupid as his brother.

It's obvious that this Time Lord isn't a drinker, because he gulps the hypervodka concoction down in one shot. The effect is pretty immediate, and Jack can only watch in abstract horror as the Time Lord falls over his own console and down into the wiring section below. Jack sets his shot glass down carefully (no sense in wasting a good hypervodka), and goes down the steps after the Time Lord who's rambling something about hunters and prisons and who knows what else, and looks as though he's using what's left of his mind's rationality to fight his own hand from taking a pocket watch out of his vest pocket. Jack reels back at the sight of the watch, thankful he's only had a tiny sip of his hypervodka, and leaves the Time Lord down there arguing with himself as he climbs back up to the console area. He sees the TARDIS screen flashing at him, and after all of his mistakes over the past ten years, _this_ is the moment the Time Academy should be proud of him for. He's going to bring a Time Lord back to life.

Loki's head is spinning, or maybe the TARDIS is finally working, he's not quite sure. Either way, whatever he's got to say about Misgard's future, he will definitely _not_ recommend their alcohol. It feels like Mjölnir has hit him in the head multiple times, but the aftertaste is not of copper and blood, but rather of a sweet alcohol that burns the back of his throat. His mind might be used to the fact that he's been drinking since he was young, but the body that he's occupying certainly hasn't, and it's a bit late for that now, isn't it? Besides, his hand keeps going to his pocket, and there's a very good reason why he's meant to stop his hand from doing that, Loki's almost positive about it. He swears he can hear the howls of the hunters, and actually tries to hide inside of his own jacket, despite it not being large enough to hide him from anything or anyone. He's a little bit drunk, and if Loki had known that this body was such a lightweight, then he would have taken that little glass and thrown it as far as he inhumanly could. He feels sick all of a sudden, his stomach churning violently, and for Odin's sake, _why won't his hand cooperate_?!

Jack's face suddenly looms into view, and Loki starts back in fear, surprise, or both. There's something being attached to his head, and he relaxes, thinking it's his own horned helmet. But the reflective surfaces of the TARDIS are all too clear, and he sees that it's not his helmet, not at all. It's got _things_ attached to it, and his hand is opening the pocket watch (_when did he allow his hand to take hold of it in the first place?!_), and he's looking into the greenish light the watch emits. It's a lovely green light, much like the colour of his favourite clothing, and then the Doctor's memories are being restored and he's being pushed out by a presence that's so much stronger than he is, though he is definitely not weak. There's no way he can resist, not with the hypervodka clouding his mind, and then Loki's standing next to the Doctor; actually, he's collapsing into a heap because he's managed to take the Odin-damned alcohol with him, and the Doctor's sober. _Now that's just not fair_, he thinks, even as his mind goes unconscious yet again.

There's a loud noise outside of the TARDIS and Jack peers out, thinking that the Time Academy have finally caught up to him, only to see... Well, a big bulking blonde man standing in his apartment and taking up so much room that everyone behind him looks minuscule in comparison. For once, the sight of a muscle-bound man doesn't make Jack's knees go weak, and he shrinks back, closing the TARDIS door gently. He hears a flurry of noise behind him, and the Time Lord's making his way around the console expertly (nimbly avoiding Jack's drink, which Jack hurries over to take before it can be knocked over). The Time Lord pulls a lever and presses a button, and with a loud eerie noise, they disappear through time and space.

One of the TARDIS' console screens is flashing brightly, welcoming her Doctor back, and she changes the course he's set, ignoring his shouts of protest gleefully.

...

End of the third chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Fifth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Four

...

The Doctor looks between the two men he's somehow managed to pick up while he wasn't even himself. Jack Harkness, still a Time Agent, albeit a younger one than the Doctor ever knew - who by all accounts and purposes, really shouldn't be here at all, but his Sexy does what she likes, and it seems she's taken a liking to _this_ Jack for whatever reason - and Loki, a ... well, an alien _god_ who definitely shouldn't be here either. He wants to ask Sexy just what exactly it is that she's planning on doing, but the Doctor doubts he'll get an answer.

At least both men are sound asleep from whatever it was they drank. (He just smelled the stuff and his head ached, he can't imagine how they'll be feeling when they wake up, but he doubts that they'll be pleasant feelings.) The Doctor sets off for the kitchen to make his world-famous hangover cure (well, it would be world-famous if more people actually gave his culinary and drink masterpiece the credit it deserved), straightening his bow tie along the way.

...

Loki wakes up to a pounding head, and this time it's not because he's hit it on something. His mouth feels dry, his stomach is still churning, although a little more slowly now. He vows that next time, no matter what, he is definitely _not_ going to drink anything that a Midgardian offers to him, no matter how he's feeling. Any feeling is better than _this_ feeling, he's sure of it. Clutching his head weakly, he remembers to open his eyes before sitting up, and finds that he's in a bed ... of sorts. Somehow, it seems that there is another bed above him, which is by far and large a strange thing to wake up to, and surely not safe. Loki immediately shoots out of the bed to see that the pair of beds are surprisingly stable and he won't be crushed in his sleep, if he has to sleep here again. He looks at the bed above and finds Jack Harkness lying in it, clutching his sheet and from what Loki can see, completely naked. He doesn't quite understand the Midgardian's compulsion to be naked and so vulnerable while asleep, and leaves the room with a shake of his head.

Loki can smell food, but the churning in his stomach is hunger, not sickness, and he follows the smell eagerly. He belatedly realises that he can feel a humming sensation under his feet (_come to think of it, where are his boots?_), and knows that whatever's happened, the TARDIS is actually moving again. Loki comes into the kitchen to find the man with no-longer-his-face and bow tie (no, Loki's hands are not going to where the bow tie would be on his neck, he's just brushing off his shirt), cooking over a large oven, arguing with ... well, no one that he can see. He queries this in a soft voice (the alcohol really did hurt his throat after all), and the man stops shouting at nothing very abruptly, turning to face him in a smooth motion of arms and limbs that Loki doubts his own body could perform quite so easily.

The man - Time Lord - introduces himself as the Doctor (he seems a little disappointed when Loki just nods in response and doesn't ask anything), and ushers him to a bench in the kitchen, serving up a plate of food, and a drink that probably shouldn't be bubbling, but it is, and tells him to eat up. Loki is wary of anything that hasn't been prepared by someone he knows, even more so after recent events, but the Doctor's just waiting, watching him impatiently, and finally snatches a fish finger off the plate to eat it himself. When the Time Lord doesn't drop dead immediately, Loki takes a hesitant bite of the food, and is surprised to find that it actually doesn't taste awful. The Doctor goes to get his special straw to sample the drink as well, and Loki's almost finished his plate of food by the time he comes back. The Doctor drinks a sip, pulls a face, and stalks out of the kitchen (_so **that's** how you stalk in that body_!) with a sour look and grumbling under his breath. Curious, Loki follows him to the console room and watches as the Doctor throws the whole drink, glass and all, out of the TARDIS door. There's a flashing from the console, and the Doctor says that he knew it was salt all along, and for her to stop laughing already. Loki vaguely wonders if this is a kidnapping, and if it is, then it's just his luck to be kidnapped by the craziest person in the Nine Worlds. (He conveniently forgets that he's the one who threw himself into the empty mind of a Time Lord.)

...

Okay, Jack's fine with being on a TARDIS, really. He's done loads of time travel, and if he's lucky, the Time Agency will even give him an actual ship of his own one day. (If not, which is becoming much more likely with everything he's done and the whole running away from his employers thing, then Jack knows people who know people that steal things people want, and he _really_ wants a ship.) What he's not okay with is being kidnapped by a TARDIS, a nameless Time Lord, and someone who - the last he saw - had horns growing out of his head, and then waking up in bed _alone_ to boot. That's the last time in this lifetime that he'll be offering a cute guy a shot of hypervodka.

He falls out of bed, which is unexpectedly a longer fall than first anticipated, and after rubbing his sore body parts and pulling on a pair of pants, Jack makes his way through the TARDIS to the console room in time to see the Time Lord throw something out of the door, closing it with a slam. The other guy (no longer with any horns growing out of his head, but Jack finds that he didn't mind them, not that he's actually adverse to this man being near him without the horns either) looks somewhat bewildered and confused. At least he's stopped rambling about hunters and whatever else (although, taking the horns into account, that's actually starting to make more sense).

The Time Lord and the other man both seem to notice him at the same time, and both pairs of eyes turning on him - specifically, eyes that have lived centuries longer than he has, and look at him with all of the intensity of a hungry man watching meat - makes Jack want to bolt back to the bedroom and cower under the sheets. Instead, he draws himself up, introduces himself to them properly, offering his hand despite the previous encounter, and finally meets the Doctor and Loki. The latter seems surprised about the former's knowledge of him, but the Time Lord waves off his queries without really revealing anything important, Jack notices, and guides them back to the kitchen, muttering about finding the sugar container this time around.

...

The Doctor's quite pleased with himself, really. He's managed to find the sugar bowl (tested it this time, just to make sure it's not salt), both Loki and Jack seem to approve of his cooking, and he found his favourite fez hiding in the back of the pantry. (The pantry's got a secret entrance to the library-cum-swimming pool, despite the rule of not eating after food. That's a rule he discovered the hard way really shouldn't be broken. He still remembers Amy laughing and admonishing him at the same time when his leg seized up and he almost got sucked into the small whirlpool in the centre of the pool. All pools should have whirlpools, or there's really not much point in the word pool being part of whirlpool, then it would just be a whirl, and that doesn't sound right at all.)

He presents his fez-adorned head with a flourish that's lost on the two men sitting at his kitchen bench, and the Doctor scowls at them for not appreciating his favourite fez. Jack still looks a little off-colour, while Loki simply looks... _Hmm, what is that expression?_ The Doctor peers at him closely, trying to figure it out, and Loki pulls back, trying to get as far away from him as possible, and _ah, that's it_. He's not afraid, but he's certainly concerned for his welfare. It's similar to the 'oh no, I'm going to die again' look that Rory sometimes got whenever ... well, whenever he ended up dying. It's an expression that the Doctor really doesn't like his companions to have, because something always ends up going wrong. _Huh, wait a minute_. He didn't remember making Loki an official companion. It's not like he's given him a key, as he usually did with his previous companions. But his mind's made up, and Jack will eventually become a companion anyway, so why not both of them? It's not the first time, probably won't be the last, and it looks like they're all on the run from something, so they might as well run together.

Which reminds the Doctor all too forcibly of the reason he was running in the first place. He had to get to Targos Beta to find a friend. Except, it wasn't a friend of the Doctor's, it was a friend of John Smith. Odd as it may seem, but even the normal human persona of the Doctor has a friend way out in the galaxy and across the stars. _Well, it looks like his friend may just need to meet the Doctor rather than John Smith this time around_, he muses to himself, leaving the kitchen with his fez firmly on his head and heads to the console room to change course. This time, his Sexy doesn't change coordinates.

...

End of the fourth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.


	6. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Sixth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Five

...

Jack stumbles back into the TARDIS, clutching his bleeding arm and his foot dragging awkwardly. The Doctor and Loki aren't too far behind, the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver to blast frequencies at whatever the hell it was that was chasing them. Apparently, the planet of Targos Beta not only had lava-filled oceans, but there was something in those oceans that craved human flesh and blood. As the only human aboard the TARDIS, Jack was lucky to escape with his limbs still intact.

He collapses into one of the chairs surrounding the TARDIS console, breathing heavily as he tries not to throw up at the sight of bone through the chunk of flesh torn from his arm. The Doctor apologises profusely, and sets about healing him (surprisingly, the Doctor is also an actual Doctor) as Loki stands to the side and watches. It's because of Loki that Jack's still alive - a magical shield protecting him from whatever it was that tried to make him into lunch - and he's grateful. Jack's also exhausted, and can't manage more than a mumbled thank you as he falls asleep in the TARDIS console room.

...

One of the monsters starts banging against the TARDIS, and the Doctor yells about them being rude, hurrying to change the console settings to anywhere but here. He absent-mindedly notices Loki pick Jack up and carry him away, but then a console screen starts flashing red, and the Doctor doesn't think any more on it.

Apparently _anywhere but here_ is a good enough setting for his Sexy, and she races them out of there faster than the speed of light. The Doctor sighs and sits on one of his chairs, muttering under his breath that the next time he gets a call from one of his friends, he's going to make sure that they're actually them first. Jep had been eaten by a whale-like monster that lived in the lava oceans of Targos Beta, and while getting his Sexy to materialise in the middle of a whale-like monster wasn't really a problem (more than enough room, actually), finding out that Jep was being controlled by the lava-whale was more of a problem, resulting in their escape from said lava-whale and the attack on Jack. The Doctor wishes that this could be the last time he has to see his friends hurt, and he doesn't just mean Jep, but there's a part of him resigned to the fact that no matter what he does - even when he tries to get by without making friends - someone will always get hurt.

...

Loki is surprised at the feeling that wells in his chest at the sight of the bandages around Jack's arm and leg. It's so different to the hatred he usually feels for ... well, anyone other than himself, that it takes him a moment to determine what it actually is. Concern, which is new for him, and something acidic on his tongue that tastes oddly like worry. It's a ridiculous feeling, because the Doctor has healed Jack and he's a doctor (_it says so right there in his name!_ The Doctor's words, not Loki's), so he knows that Jack will live. But it doesn't stop Loki from staying awake through the night, sitting by the younger man's side to ensure that he really will be fine.

In the morning, he'll discover that he fell off his chair at some point during the night but somehow managed to sleep through the fall; he'll find out that his boots and horned helmet were under his bed the whole time; and on seeing Jack snoring peacefully, Loki will realise that these feelings he has for the younger man probably won't go away any time soon. With Loki still being hunted by Thor and the other Asgardians, and Jack still being pursued by the Time Agency for whatever it is that he did (he must really ask him about that sometime), he knows beyond their friendship and a mutual companionship to the Doctor (however odd that sounds, Loki's found that there's definitely never a dull moment being a companion to the Doctor), there is nothing else that will or could ever happen between them.

Besides, he's a god of both Asgard and Jötunheim, and there are rules against entering into any sort of relationship with a lesser being, especially one from Midgard. Though, Loki thinks to himself, he's never been one for following the rules.

...

The TARDIS is all for slow romances and friendship, all of that, really, she is. (_Okay, she really isn't. Why live life at such a slow pace when there's so much going on, so much to be seen and done?_) Loki and Jack have been dancing around each other for days, and it's not really her fault that she altered the set course to land on a pleasure planet. (_Okay, it really is._)

The Doctor had been blushing mad (or madly blushing? Maybe both) after she landed on the planet, coughed, and mentioned something about seeing his wife. He'd borrowed Jack's time vortex manipulator, and while Sexy wasn't entirely happy about being replaced by that silly leather strap, she did like having front row tickets to all of the fun stuff he'd left behind. It's definitely not her fault that Jack had slept with the daughter (and then wife, and then twin sons) of the man who had the most influence on the planet, who then ordered Jack to be killed the next day. Loki had been pacing her console room ever since Jack left (Jack had stripped on seeing the pleasure planet's inhabitants and left immediately without a stitch on; she swears there's still a sock hanging about in her wiring), and when she'd brought up the daily news - including the news of Jack's scheduled beheading - Loki had... _What was that phrase?_ ... ah yes, gone completely and utterly _bonkers_.

Sexy doesn't really know what all the fuss is about; it had all worked out in the end. Jack avoided being killed by ordering four hypervodkas as a last meal, and after dragging Jack away from his two newfound lovers, Loki had finally admitted that he could feel something other than rage and a lust for power (_jealousy wasn't a **bad** thing, was it?_). The Doctor has returned just in time to find them snogging on her console. Jack's still naked, Loki's flushed, and the Doctor's eyes have gone so wide she almost thinks they might fall out of his pointy-chinned head. Either way, her doors are closed, and they really should be leaving before someone realises that Jack's missing. She leaves, jolting them all into action; the Doctor spins on his heel to stop staring, muttering something about River corrupting him; Jack just grins and Loki tugs his hand to go to their bedroom, his lips swollen and cheeks a faint pink colour. Really, she should set up a matchmaking service.

...

End of the fifth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	7. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Seventh day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Six

...

The Doctor is stern with Sexy when he sets the next lot of coordinates, telling her very firmly that he really needs to go to this place, and can she stop changing course? _Please_. (All right, he begs and pleads more than demands, but he's never been stupid enough to offend his Sexy. Well, not stupid enough to offend her more than once. In each regeneration. Or maybe he should measure his time by companions? That makes it not quite so long, but ultimately more depressing.) He sighs and sits down on one of the chairs, frowning when he sees something white far down in the wiring below. He gets rigged up, puts his safety goggles on over his eyes, adjusts his bow tie firmly, and then carefully lowers himself down into the wiring.

_A sock_. There's a sock in his Sexy's wiring. It's definitely not his, probably not Loki's since he hasn't worn his boots since coming onboard, and the Doctor doesn't want to think about why on Earth Jack's had a reason to leave his sock down in the TARDIS' wiring in the first place. Luckily, he brought tongs, and he picks up the offending item with a grimace. _A short stop by a volcanic planet should do the trick_, the Doctor thinks to himself, intent on dropping the sock and tongs in together. He pulls himself up to the console platform, throws the offending items in the direction of the door, and pulls his goggles up to alter Sexy's coordinates. She doesn't seem to mind - no flashing lights or abrupt beeping noises at least - and the Doctor heads off to the bedrooms to wake Loki and Jack. It's really about time they were getting up, after all.

Three thoughts. 1) They should really lock the door against his sonic screwdriver, hang a tie or sock on the handle, or something; 2) The Doctor's fairly sure the bunk beds were much cooler than the four-poster bed Loki magicked up for them; 3) Loki's horned helmet probably wasn't made to be worshipped in that way.

...

Jack's lying on his back, staring at the ceiling (which, thankfully, is much further away now that Loki's altered the bed), grinning a little smugly as Loki dozes beside him. The sex was absolutely fucking fantastic (and this is from someone who recently had four hypervodkas and a threesome), and Loki's a much more considerate lover than he would have initially guessed. It was surprising that Loki let him take charge the way he had, but Jack made sure to return the favour, and he doubts he'll ever forget the way Loki looked looming above him.

He looks over at Loki now and grins when he sees that his hair is messed up, he has a few nail marks on his chest (and probably more than a few on his back as well), and his skin is currently blue. Jack has absolutely no issue with the blue skin, and can only imagine what Loki would look like with blue skin and dressed in his green and black clothing. He'd probably look damn hot. Speaking of temperature-based beings, Loki's gone from a pleasant warmth to downright freezing. Jack grins to himself. He knows exactly how to warm him up, god or not.

Jack adjusts the horned helmet on his head and slips down the bed with a wild grin on his face. With all of the curves, sharp pointy ends, and pure suggestiveness in just its shape alone, Jack finds that Loki's helmet makes him want to do wicked things to the owner of said helmet. (Some might argue that Jack would want to do wicked things to him anyway. He's not going to disagree.) Now that they're on a bed that he can actually move on, it's much easier to fulfil his fantasies. (Although later, he might get the bunk bed back and see just what they can come up with together in such a restricted space. Which reminds him: they'll need to test the shower too.) Now, to much pressing matters, like warming up his lover so they won't both freeze to death.

...

_This has to be the best way he's ever been woken up_, Loki thinks hazily. He can feel the horns of his helmet brushing against his thighs, and the feeling it creates wasn't something he had in mind when he designed the helmet, but it's definitely a welcome bonus. He lifts his hips slowly, and Jack actually moans in appreciation around him (one of the best sounds a Midgardian can make, honestly), and now that he's properly awake, Loki can hold onto Jack, his blue fingers clutching at his tanned skin eagerly.

_Wait. Blue fingers?_ He pulls his hands away abruptly, stares at them, and sees hands of a Jötunheim giant, albeit a small one. Blue hands, blue skin, blue lines across his face. He knows that Jack's seen them, this curse upon his life, but oddly enough, it doesn't seem to bother him. Not even the fact that he's much colder while like this seems to bother him either. In fact, Jack almost looks even more aroused by him than he was the previous day. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on his part.

Loki takes a moment to concentrate (it's surprisingly hard, considering what Jack's tongue and mouth are currently doing to him) and returns his skin to its usual pale colour, and Jack scratches his thighs with a look of anger (thank all the stars in the Nine Worlds that he doesn't remove his mouth to issue a protest; Loki would have to do something ridiculous and demeaning like beg then). Loki lets the illusion slip away, and Jack shows his appreciation in a way that is most befitting.

...

Sexy's curious and always has been. She's usually curious about the world, about the Time Lords, and about her Doctor, but right now, she's curious as to how long Loki and Jack think they'll survive in their room without any sort of sustenance. She's a bit of a jealous type (it's spending all of that time with her Doctor and watching the others come and go, his hearts breaking and leaving her to pick up the pieces each and every time), and while she's allowed Loki to change the bed so she could satisfy her curiosity, Sexy's not letting him conjure up any food. So far, it's been three straight days, and that's only one day off the current record.

(Amy and Rory lasted for two days before Amy sent Rory out for food, ignoring his protests at his Roman attire. Sexy had changed the signs just to keep the pretty one wandering about a bit longer... The Doctor and River, on one of the very rare times that they'd spent more than a few hours together, had stayed in their room for four days straight, the word _sweetie_ being echoed loudly for some time. In fact, one of the furthest rooms might still be echoing from the memory alone.)

Loki seems annoyed at his magic not working, and she thinks it serves him right to think that he's the oldest and most powerful being here, when it's obviously her. Sexy changes the bed back to a set of bed bunks just to set the record straight, and Loki mutters something somewhat obscene under his breath. Jack, on the other hand, seems to forget about his stomach, and pulls Loki down onto the bottom bunk eagerly.

_Huh. It looks like they might be breaking the record after all. Curious._

...

End of the sixth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	8. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Eighth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Seven

...

_Five whole days_. The Doctor has companions so he won't be left alone, and then these two go ahead and leave him alone for five whole days! He knits his way through three bags of yarn (scarves and sweaters for a few companions here and there), finishes all of the Game of Thrones books (the last one has him torn between wanting to cry, and wanting to go back in time to curse at George RR Martin loudly and repeatedly), wins and loses various chess games against Sexy (he lost more than he won; she cheated, he's sure of it), and then bores himself silly by watching a television program about houses in the 96th century (the alien that presented the show hadn't known the difference between Gothic Victorian and Gothic Elizabethan windows, it was an utter waste of time, really). On this, the fifth day, he has been baking and cooking various foods (some exotic, some more well-known on Earth, and some he created in a fit of inspiration), after which he sits himself down the hall to their bedroom with a well-positioned fan and waits for them to come out.

It does the trick; Jack and Loki finally leave the room and find the Doctor sitting on the floor with a feast in front of him. He sees that Loki is blue (that explains the odd reading on his sonic screwdriver, and he really should've read more Norse mythology before agreeing to help an alien god escape his hunters, but these things happen), and grins brightly, taking a bite of one of his cheese and chocolate pastries. _Not too bad, actually_. He invites them to join him on a picnic, and when they agree, the Doctor gathers everything into the waiting basket and heads straight for the console room, leaving the TARDIS before they can change their minds. They've been parked for a day and a half, and his two companions have been so wrapped up in each other that they haven't even noticed. (He silently promises himself that this is going to be the last time he picks a couple as companions; they never seem to admire him as much as they should when they have someone else around.)

The Doctor asks questions of them as he serves up their food (Jack doesn't seem to care what's on his plate and digs right in; Loki, on the other hand, looks dubious about every morsel), and while he doesn't drink any of the wine (it's a special occasion when two companions finally come out for some air, honestly it is), the Doctor pours very generous amounts for both Loki and Jack. Jack drinks the whole bottle, never mind that it was one of the dustier and more expensive bottles, and Loki gets surprisingly drunk off one glass. (He mutters something about Midgardian alcohol content as his skin changes between blue and white.) With them both a little more than drunk, it all comes spilling out. Jack's on the run from the Time Agency because he tried to find out who invaded his home planet all those years ago (unsuccessfully, he might add, because invisible invaders are still invisible no matter when you are), and Loki's on the run from Asgardian hunters because he tried to enslave the entire human race while under the control of some icy giants (even though he went to them in the first place because he was the only Jötun in Asgard, brought in against his will and without his knowledge, and then banished when he learnt the truth). Either way, it's a very enlightening picnic.

...

Jack's still slightly tipsy when the Doctor ushers them back to the TARDIS and flies off again. He doesn't ask where they're going, doesn't think he wants to know, but just collapses into a chair beside Loki and rests his head on his shoulder. He intends to rest for a few minutes, so his body can work off the alcohol a little faster, and ends up falling asleep completely.

Jack dreams he's back on his planet, the day his father's killed and brother's lost. He runs along the hill, his grip tight in Gray's hand. The terror he's feeling makes him sweat, his hands are slippery from it all, and he can't hold on. His brother stumbles and their hands part, but Jack keeps running. He thinks that Gray's still right behind him, and he keeps right on running. In his dream, when he stops, Gray's there and he bumps into him, eyes wide and fearful at what's been happening. In his dream, Gray isn't lost, and together, they walk back to find their father and mother, hidden and still alive. But this time, the dream changes, and when he stops running, it's Loki behind him instead. They're not on the Boeshane Peninsula anymore, instead they're on Asgard, and it's a thing of beauty and terror, because those creatures have followed him here and Loki's not safe. He yells at him to leave, to run, escape, to live, and he'll distract them, but Loki just smiles a little sadly. He clutches his hand on realising what Loki intends to do, but Loki's stronger than he is, and he gets free easily. Then Jack's being propelled away by a pulse of magic, and he can only watch and scream as Loki steps back out of the darkness and into the light to save him.

He wakes up with a scream, and despite the queries of concern from Loki and the curious looks from the Doctor, Jack refuses to tell either of them about his dream. Instead, he asks where they are (only just realising that the TARDIS isn't moving), and the Doctor replies Boeshane Peninsula, the day of the invasion, and Jack runs straight out of the console room to the nearest bathroom, his stomach churning up the picnic.

...

Loki turns on the Doctor immediately, his red eyes glowing in anger, and it's the first time he's seen the Time Lord look even minutely afraid. He knows all kinds of sorcery and magic, yet Loki has a sudden desire to plant his fist straight into the Doctor's face. It's much more his brother's behaviour, but he cannot shake the feeling, the absolute _need_, to physically hurt someone, and so instead, he leaves the console room before he can be dragged down to Thor's level.

He hears Jack before he sees him on his knees (and there's a momentary flashback of him making Midgardians kneel before him, but not like this, not with Jack) in front of a toilet, heaving the bottle of alcohol and the picnic up. He finishes vomiting but stays crouched where he is, his chest heaving (Loki gets momentarily distracted by the sight of his shoulder blades through his tight white shirt, but that's neither here nor there). Loki says that if he's not feeling well, they'll blame it on the cheese and chocolate pastries; he can go straight back to bed. They don't have to leave the TARDIS, not even the Doctor can make them do something against their will.

Jack shakes his head, and sits back on his heels, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Loki winces and helps him up to the sink where Jack can wash up properly with water and soap. Jack washes his hands, rinses his mouth, gurgles some mouthwash that isn't meant to expire for another 200 years, and spits it out unceremoniously into the sink before finally looking into the mirror to lock eyes with Loki. He smiles a brilliant straight white-toothed smile, and gives him a wink as only Jack can. Then he turns, presses a firm and hard kiss to Loki's lips before he takes his hand and marches them right back to the console room and straight out of the door without uttering a single word. The Doctor follows after them quickly, sonic screwdriver in hand. Loki keeps his grip firmly in Jack's and doesn't let go.

...

_It's a fixed point in time, so sorry, it can't be changed_; Sexy's heard it all before. But most of the time, the Doctor ends up breaking his own rule and ends up trying to alter something, somewhere anyway. She can't say that she blames him - he's her heroic Doctor who always tries to fix things, places, people - but more often than not, something, somewhere always seems to go wrong.

This time is no different.

...

End of the seventh chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	9. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Ninth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Eight

...

The Doctor didn't really expect the horrible monsters to be ... well, that _horrible_. He thought it was simply a description coming from child's mind, one that had stretched what had been into what could have been, but in this case, Jack's memory was absolutely and utterly correct. The most horrible monsters you could ever imagine. And he's imagined (and oftentimes, fought against) hundreds of monsters throughout the universe, but none quite like this. Although, this time he's decided that standing and fighting is not going to be the best option for all. Instead, he wants to do what he should have done on first sighting these terrible monsters: run as far and fast as he can.

His companions have other ideas though, and refuse to follow him back to the TARDIS. Jack is out there with a sonic blaster (_honestly, who thinks a blaster should be made more sonic?_) and Loki... Loki's just as terrifying as the monsters, and the Doctor's infinitely glad that the God of Mischief is on his side. But he's not really on his side, he's on Jack's side, but Jack's on his side, so that's good enough for now. But also, they _really_ need to get going.

The Doctor pokes his head out of the door and yells for his companions to get in the TARDIS already. Loki's blasting the monsters with his sceptre, his horns covered and dripping with their blood and he looks absolutely terrifying, but he's never looked happier. Jack's blasting the monsters with his sonic blaster, his white shirt completely stained a blue-green mix, and he's laughing hysterically as he kills one monster after another after another. The Doctor quietly slips back into the TARDIS and decides to wait for them to finish instead.

...

Despite the fact his arm's got more than a few gouges in it from the monsters fighting back, Jack's fairly certain that he's never felt better in his life (although, he is slightly dizzy from throwing up, and he's pretty sure there's still some alcohol left in his blood system). He's pretty sure that he's just decimated over half of the race that attacked his home planet, and at that moment, Jack could care less about the mass murder. The Doctor landed them on the other side of the peninsula, and there's no way that he can save his father or his brother from this distance, but for now, this will have to do. The monsters on the other side of the peninsula are still there, still destroying his home planet and his entire life (_fixed point, can't be changed, blah, blah, blah_), and Jack hates that he has to let them, and wishes that the Doctor hadn't disabled his time vortex manipulator (muttering something about not letting history repeat itself as he did so).

Jack lowers his weapons (the sonic blaster's battery ran out some time ago, but that's why he always carries spare weapons in his pockets), and looks over to Loki, who's sweating and dripping monster blood from his helmet. Jack goes to wipe his weapons clean before putting them back in his pockets, then sees that he's covered in blood too, and just shoves them in without another thought, the accompanying squelching sound probably a mite too satisfying, but oh well. Loki lowers his sceptre, and Jack hugs him tightly until he's sure they both can't breathe, ignoring the noises of protests and squelching. When he's finally able to let go of Loki (not for very long, as he takes his hand almost immediately), they head back into the TARDIS together.

The Doctor looks like he's been waiting a long time, and quickly sonics a foil hat that he'd been creating to destroy the evidence. When he stands, ignoring the look Jack's giving him, the Doctor informs them that the race have a planet on the outskirts of the galaxy - Bedlam Outlands. According to the information the Doctor's found, the monsters take their captives there and torture them, and Jack's smile slips, his hand tightens around Loki's, and he demands to be taken there immediately. If his brother's been taken captive, then that's where they'll be taking him.

...

Loki's eyes flash red, and he grips his sceptre that little bit tighter, intent on using it to make the Doctor do as Jack says if he tries to refuse. The Doctor doesn't seem to notice or care, and says that if they'll shut the door, they'll go there immediately, TARDIS willing.

Relaxing slightly, Loki realises that his poor helmet's covered in monster blood (it deserves better than this, his beloved helmet), and drags Jack in the direction of the bathroom to get clean again. He doesn't mind getting dirty, really, but getting clean with Jack is an experience all on its own, one that he hopes to repeat often.

Loki has no idea what the future will hold for any of them, and while it doesn't look like he'll be ruling over the galaxy - or even Asgard - anytime in the near future, he doesn't mind this as much as he thought he would. His brother's a whole other planet, galaxy, or even realm away, and Loki doesn't have to answer to anyone or anything. For the moment, he can even pretend that he's not even being hunted, that it's normal for his eyes to be red and his skin to be blue, that even with his superior skill at magic and illusions, he can still be considered as something other than a freak or mistake, that he can be a friend and a lover.

...

Sexy's trying to get through to the Bedlam Outlands, even following the Doctor's coordinates for once, but something's not letting her through. It's not a time distortion, as there was in Manhattan all those months ago (or is it years now? It's so difficult to keep track of how much time has passed when she's capable of travelling through time in her own timey-wimey way), but whatever the force is, it's strong enough to push her out of time. She's a TARDIS though, and has been travelling for millennia longer than this planet's been turning, and she's strong enough to keep herself on course.

Instead of arriving on the Bedlam Outlands a day or two after the attack on the Boeshane Peninsula, she's forced to jump ahead ten and a half years before the timeline's stable enough for her to land properly. Sexy doesn't like being this far off time, especially when she wants to go somewhere and somewhen just as much as her inhabitants, but there's no way she can apologise for it.

She lets the Doctor know that they've landed in a different time than he requested, but he doesn't berate her. He felt the force pushing at her almost as strongly as she did, though Sexy did try to shield him from it the best she could. Instead, he smiles, thanks his old girl, and calls out for Loki and Jack. They've got some exploring to do, and for once, she's all too glad to be left behind. She needs some time to relax and recoup her strength after everything that's happened. Or before everything will happen, Sexy's not quite sure.

...

End of the eighth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	10. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Tenth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Nine

...

The Doctor knows something's wrong before he even steps out of the TARDIS door. First, there was something stopping his old girl from landing in the right time, and whatever it was (or still is), it's strong. Second, he did a preliminary scan of the planet, and it doesn't look like there's much life left on the planet. Considering these are monsters that procreate simply so that they can drive fear into the hearts of others, and then capture and torture other species for _fun_, the Doctor's a bit wary as to what's happened to such a blood-thirsty lot. They aren't even a species who've had an inter-species war since every single one of the monsters are focused on terrorising other species first. _They've barely made their way across the galaxy, why stop and kill each other now_? If that's even what they've done.

He turns away from his screens and sees Jack and Loki ready and armed to the teeth (he has to tell Jack to put his guns away three times before he reluctantly does so). The Doctor's purposely parked on the other side of the colony and even made his old girl invisible just so they won't be seen. The monsters - what's left of them, anyway - won't even know they're there if they're quiet about it. (She made her usual noise even though he tried to stop it, but hopefully it will just be considered as an odd-sounding wind.) They can go in, find whoever they've got captive, rescue them, and leave without the remaining monsters ever knowing about it. (Loki doesn't seem to like this plan but Jack gives a nod so they both agree with the Doctor, even if it's reluctantly, and follow him out onto the barren world.)

The Doctor's surprisingly quiet and not so fall-over-his-own-feet as he usually is. His mouth is dry, but it's not due to the high temperature of the planet; his sonic screwdriver isn't telling him much more than the TARDIS screens already did. The planet's being deserted, but he doesn't know why. The walk to the colony isn't as far as he expected (the planet's not as large as he's used to), and they arrive in time to see one of the monsters' ships leaving the atmosphere. His jaw hardens when he sees that they've left people behind, chained to the buildings like animals. He sonics their chains until they all fall off, but very few seem to realise that they're free, that they can finally stand. He feels sick to his stomach when he sees the state that these people are in, and runs back to the TARDIS to get food and water for them all.

...

As the Doctor runs back Jack runs forward, making his way through the captives, trying to find his brother anywhere among the masses. There are so many people, so many lives that he never knew were stolen, and there are so many that are already dying from the wounds they've received, shivering at Death's cold touch despite the planet's intense heat.

Jack's heart is beating wildly in his chest and he doesn't know if his heart can actually explode from this feeling, but it certainly feels like it, and he can't breathe, and he can't see Gray anywhere, and oh god, now he can feel Death's cold touch too. He swallows his scream even as he turns to face Death, only to find that it's Loki behind him instead. Jack all but collapses into his chest, forcing himself to breathe; long and shuddering deep breaths that make his lungs burn. He's not dying, he's not dying, and even though he can't see Gray anywhere at the moment, Jack's alive and he's not dying.

He lets himself be tugged in the direction of the Doctor and helps him save as many as he can. By the time they've reached some poor souls, they've already succumbed and willingly taken Death's hand, their bodies no longer shivering in the harsh sunlight. There's a space between the people, large enough for another body to have fit, and Jack wonders if that's where Gray was placed, wonders if Gray's taken Death's hand as well, or if something even worse has happened to his younger brother. The Doctor promises to find out, and Jack wants to believe him more than anything.

...

Loki's sickened by what he sees on this day. At least when **he** threatened to enslave and kill an entire race, he stuck around until the bitter end. (His own set of morals are extremely high when compared against others, but much more flexible when he's looking at his own life and the decisions he's made; it's much easier to forgive himself that way.) They find dozens of humans, as well as a few aliens, all tortured within an inch of their lives, but not one of the monsters that had done this had stayed behind. It's truly unacceptable, and Loki's itching to grab his sceptre and go back in time just to make them all pay for what they've done (or haven't done, probably both), but Jack needs him to be there. It's nice to be needed for once, and Loki stays out in the heat all day.

He's exhausted later that night - helping people is surprisingly hard, especially when they've been conditioned to view anyone other than themselves as an enemy, that every other being is intent on hurting and torturing them mercilessly. He even changed back to his pale skin so as not to frighten them further, but Loki's certain that he's never had so many people scream at the mere sight of him in one day before. (At least, not when he didn't deserve to be screamed at.) He curls an arm around Jack, making sure the door is locked to stop any half-crazed lunatics from wandering in (the people held captive on the planet might also get in), and does a small spell so Jack will sleep without dreams or nightmares plaguing him.

The events and adrenaline of the day are still coursing through him, even in the early hours of the next morning, and Loki finally gives up on the idea of trying to sleep. He carefully untangles himself from Jack's grip and leaves the room, locking the door again behind him. Loki heads down to the console room - passing the hospital-like room filled with all of the captives, some sort of machine or futuristic magic at work to restore the humans and aliens to the various health levels acceptable for each race - and is surprised to find the console room empty. The Doctor's not even in here, which is a surprise to Loki, since he doubts the man ever sleeps. He sees one of the screens flashing and pads over, his bare feet quiet against the metal grill beneath him. The screen informs him that the TARDIS can safely travel back exactly five years and land without too much trouble. All Loki has to do is pull a lever and press a button.

...

Sexy actually makes herself count in human seconds to see how long it takes before Loki does what she's telling him to do. He hesitates for exactly 3.14159 seconds, and then his hand curls around the lever, pulls it sharply, and presses down on the button. She's been waiting hours for this and leaves immediately. The Doctor forgot to take her invisibility cloaking off, but that suits her fine. She doesn't want to be seen any more in this time than she does in the time she's just left.

It doesn't take long for her to get her bearings, and she lands with a soft thud exactly five years in the past, on the very spot she occupied exactly five years into the future. It's quite a feat, and if something went wrong, then there would be two Loki's walking around her console floor. But there's only one of him, so everything's fine.

That is, everything will be fine until he opens the door. _Oh, yes, did she forget to mention that she knows exactly what force it was that was stopping her from landing earlier?_ She does, and it's currently standing in her console room with bare feet, red eyes, and blue skin.

...

End of the ninth chapter

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	11. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Eleventh day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Ten

...

The Doctor is sleeping sleeping soundly. He isn't aware of the fact that he's dreaming, but that's neither here nor there. He's dreaming of being with River - her birthday, the one with two of him (yes, _that_ one) and she's doing things to both hims that are making his toes curl and his hearts beat a little faster.

There's a fog drifting into the room, creeping under the door, making his body limp and his mind drift. He mumbles something about melodies and rivers under his breath, rolls over and continues to dream peacefully.

...

Jack is sleeping soundly. Like the Doctor, Jack isn't aware that he's dreaming, but it doesn't matter. He's dreaming about two Loki's, one pale and dark, the other blue and darker still. They're on either side of him, both doing things that even he's never dreamed of before. It's very pleasant and then one of the Loki's hands trails down his chest, and he groans into the mouth of the other Loki eagerly.

The fog that's drifting into the room curls around Jack playfully, teasing his senses until it envelopes him completely. He murmurs something about skin and sceptres under his breath, rolls over and continues to dream peacefully.

...

Loki knows that he's awake from the screams he can hear. The entire world is screaming and he can hear every single syllable of pain from every single being, and this is before he's even left the TARDIS. He's suddenly afraid, a deep fear that threads its way through his whole body, but he has to put the fear aside if only to know what's happening out there. Even the monsters he saw earlier are out there screaming, and he needs to know why. He squares his shoulders, reminds himself that he is a god, and there's nothing that he can't do. Loki takes a deep breath and steps out of the TARDIS and onto the planet of Bedlam Outlands.

Even through the swirl of sand and the rush of heat, Loki knows exactly what's out there causing all of this time placement havoc: himself. Of course it's himself, who else in the entire universe would be able to create this much chaos, this much _mischief_? Whether it's a past or future self (Loki has some alternate pasts and versions of himself, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that one of them could have ended up here), it doesn't matter, all that matters is that he stops himself from destroying the entire Nine Worlds. He knows it's possible, because after all, he is a god, and there's nothing he can't do.

...

Sexy's opened one of the rooms close to the heart of herself, a thick fog creeping out to put her beloved Doctor and Jack to sleep, along with the rest of the survivors, all to ensure that nothing goes wrong here. It's a bit cruel of her, she knows, but she also knows her lovely madman better than even he knows himself, and the Doctor will try to save the world as he always does. This time, however, the Doctor isn't the one who can save them: only Loki can. The one that created the destruction is the only one that can save them all from it. She's hoping that he can save them soon; the pulse of magic that his other self is letting out is making her dizzy, and Sexy's not entirely sure she'll be able to leave as quickly as she will need to.

This is the past of the Bedlam Outlands, and at the same time, it's also the very reason why Jack's future with Gray turns out the way it does. She can see every thread, every possible, probable, and actual future, and they all intersect and derive from this one point. It's a fixed point in time, and while she hopes Loki will be able to change the future, to save Gray, Sexy already knows that she won't be able to take on any extra passengers, not with all of time being distorted like this. It's worse than Manhattan, and the only reason she was able to land was because she fixed on the reason for the distortion itself: Loki's other self. It was difficult enough in Manhattan on a clear night, but this was done in the middle of the day during an unnatural sandstorm with Loki in the eye of it all. Still, she's pleased that she managed to land straight at all, and almost wishes the Doctor would have been awake to see it. He would have been proud of her.

Either way, they're here, and Loki's out there, and she just hopes that they'll all be able to get back to where they were. Her TARDIS heart is made of everything, of everywhere and everywhen, meaning that she should have known the outcome of this trip even before she landed, but the time distortion is even affecting her sight, and she finds herself - for the first time in a very, very, very long time - unsure of the near future. It must be utterly terrifying for mortals and aliens to live this way, Sexy decides firmly. But for her, right now, it's nothing but exciting, and she focuses on the eye of the storm where Loki and Other Loki are facing each other.

...

End of the tenth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	12. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Twelfth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Eleven

...

In his room, the Doctor's still dreaming pleasantly. Across the TARDIS in his room, Jack's still dreaming pleasantly. The dream-inducing fog is almost too effective, which is why it's been contained within the TARDIS' inner rooms for all of this time. They continue to dream without a care in the world, both men oblivious to the unnatural storm raging outside.

...

Loki sees himself standing in the middle of the storm calmly. There's no chance of a paradox - it's not the first nor the last time he'll encounter another self - and he is a god, after all, so none of this mortal tear-the-world-apart nonsense. Loki is surprised to see so much greenery and pure life blooming in the middle of the storm, since in five years' time, this entire planet will be nothing but sand and dust. Other Loki turns immediately on sensing him and gives a slight sneer as if he's been waiting and expecting him - so it's a future self then, as Other Loki seems to remember this - and points his sceptre directly at him. Loki doesn't try to dodge the beam of light that's shot out of the sceptre, just falls to his knees as it hits him square on the chest, and closes his eyes as his own memories envelope his mind.

_The monsters are torturing their captives. They have no reason to, but he can see the looks of glee on their faces despite his distance. The monsters are asking questions of the wrong people on purpose - there's no way a seven-year-old Midgardian boy would know the launch codes for the military's weaponry - making sure that their interrogations result in nothing but pain for the captive_. Other Loki went to the past to find Gray for Jack - _or to stop something from happening to Jack, the memory's a bit vague there_ - only to find the monsters living on this healthy and bountiful planet, abusing it and using it as a base to destroy and ruin countless numbers of innocent lives. He may have tried to enslave the Midgardian race, but Loki would never flay a child within an inch of his life. Children - no matter Asgardian, Jötun, or Midgardian - are precious, and should never be tortured or neglected. Other Loki had seen this and something inside him snapped - Loki's not surprised; he wants to join him, even though the memories are continuing in full force - and he had started destroying the planet as easily as the monsters were destroying their captives. It's a spell that will work slowly, despite this storm, and it works both back and forwards in time. By the time the TARDIS returns to the future in 5 years' time, there will be nothing but dust on the planet, and no indication that there was any flora growing for the past 10 years, at least.

Before Loki can say or do anything, Other Loki stops the storm abruptly and disappears, not a single word of warning. It's kind of anti-climatic, but then Loki sees why: the monsters are converging and surrounding him completely. His magic has worn away any invisibility power they might try to use, and he can see the hundreds or thousands of monsters gathered around him easily. He smiles slowly, a feral smile that betrays his only feeling: anger. It's an intense anger that makes him want to rip them all apart with his bare hands, tearing them piece by piece, limb by limb, but - unfortunately for him - they're not stupid enough to get that close to him. Instead, he uses a spell to project his voice and tells them in the clearest way possible that the minute they hear the TARDIS noise again (it plays for him, just so they can't mistake it), they are to leave the planet immediately, or he will do _far worse_ than destroy their planet's flora. He makes sure that the monsters are not able to leave before then, and they are stuck on a dying planet with only themselves and their captives for company. Loki wants to save them all, but he knows that he can't, and this is one more guilt that he can add to his list of _things that he wishes he hadn't done but there was no other choice_. He thinks that the Doctor will have a similar list, and Loki's right.

(Five years in the future, the TARDIS will land on the planet, and the monsters will be the ones trembling in fear as they flee in their ships to escape The Planet Destroyer. One of the monsters noticed Other Loki's interest in Gray before he snapped and ruined their planet, so they take Gray with them to find out exactly why he's so special to be known by The Planet Destroyer. They will get nothing from him, and they will return Gray to the destroyed planet after they've spent another six years breaking him. Eight weeks will pass before John Hart finds Gray chained up in the ruins of the Bedlam Outlands, and Gray will be so delirious that he thinks John is his brother; the brother who let go of his hand and left him to die. John will recognise who Gray is - by then he's spent five years with Jack in a two-week loop and he knows everything about him, even the parts he didn't want anyone else to know - and he'll take Gray, heal him, and together they'll go find Jack. Though they will be searching for very different reasons...)

...

Sexy sees the future of Gray, Jack, and even John Hart (who'll disappear after he's in control of himself once more, but Jack will never know that he always stays close enough to see the years take their toll on his beloved Jack). Her exterior shudders slightly at what she cannot stop. There are very few cases when she wishes she could change the future - everything occurs as it must, unfortunately; snow falling on Earth each Christmas, except it never is just snow, it's a sign that the Doctor's saved humanity yet again - but this time she wishes that she could change it all.

She knows that it's not possible, even for her, even for her beloved Doctor, so instead, Sexy waits until Loki is safely inside once more and then returns back to the future. Five years have passed and the dark spell Other Loki placed has taken its toll, with not a scrap of green in sight. She wonders if that's enough penance to make up for the things the monsters have done over their lives, and on seeing the creatures still healing in her hospital room, Sexy decides that it's not hardly enough.

The fog retracts slowly, and everyone wakes up feeling well rested (Jack wakes up horny, but that's nothing new; the Doctor does too, and that's something new). When the Doctor's up and about in her console room again (he had a shower, and if her pipes have anything to say about it, then it was a very cold one), Sexy suggests they take the patients to a certain spaceship run by pirates that includes a much more competent medical staff than herself. The Doctor agrees, and within three days (there's a slight misunderstanding between the pirate's doctor and a dark purple hickey Jack's sporting on his neck - as well as various other places that no one other than those involved want to think about), the patients have all been unloaded with the pirates - and, in all likelihood, joining their crew since most have nowhere else to go.

When it's just the three men aboard her ship once more, the Doctor consults Jack and Loki to find out where they'd like to go. Sexy wants to laugh when Loki makes a suggestion, but she can't so she doesn't. Instead, the Doctor gives a nod, enters the coordinates, and then she takes her madman and his two companions off to a planet with lots of horses.

...

End of the eleventh chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	13. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Thirteenth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

**Warning:** male pregnancy, which is canon for both parties involved, surprisingly.

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Twelve

...

_Five months later_

Jack's pregnant. Actually pregnant, baby bump and all. The Doctor doesn't want to know how or when or what sort of Asgardian magic made him that way, but he is, and he's craving gherkins like crazy. As the Asgardian hunters have caught up to them, it's probably one of the worst possible times for Jack to be pregnant (and there's a thought in the Doctor's mind that he doesn't want the Silence - or anyone else, for that matter - kidnapping another child that might have Time Lord-ish capabilities, but so far, all signs show that the child is normal. Well, as normal as it can be for a child born between Jack and Loki. It's going to be a hell-raiser, that's for sure, and the Doctor almost means that literally). There's something to be said for Asgardian pregnancies though (or perhaps Jötun, maybe both), in that they go by much faster than Earth ones. Jack will be giving birth in a matter of days, and the Doctor has to find a qualified doctor who can deal with a male pregnancy, preferably one who Jack won't try to sleep with. (At one point, the Doctor had to lock himself in his room so Jack wouldn't see him - apparently the hormones are extremely enhanced too. Loki didn't bother wearing clothes for three full weeks when it became clear that Jack would be inclined to rip them off him at the slightest whim.)

Anyway, back to the Asgardians. They've caught up to them, and the Doctor's had his old girl running about the universe so much in the past 24 hours to try and escape them that even _he's_ dizzy. They've only stopped for about fifteen minutes in total (Jack needed gherkins and if he didn't get them, then someone was going to lose a precious part of their anatomy. The Doctor didn't care who Jack was threatening, he stopped the TARDIS as soon as inhumanly possible), but no one's throwing up anymore, so that's a bonus.

He's taken them back to Earth. Well, a future version of it, at least. They're in the 103rd century, a time when everyone was getting pregnant and no one would bat an eyelash at an ordinary human male pregnancy among it all. The Doctor's all too glad when Loki offers to take Jack planet-side without a chaperone. He's exhausted and needs another 24 hours just to rest. So does the TARDIS, it seems, because she's altered course very slightly in order to land on one of the rifts in the planet so she can recharge. The rift is potent enough to mask their presence, which should give Jack enough time to give birth in peace without worrying about the Asgardians finding them. He hopes.

...

_Gherkins, gherkins, gherkins; why on Earth was Earth the only planet that produced proper gherkins?! Honestly, how hard could it be to grow the vegetable anyway_? Jack's eating his way through his fourth jar of sweet gherkins, leaning his head against Loki's shoulder as he chews contentedly. Loki has an arm around him carefully (Jack's just as likely to snap at him as he is to kiss him) and seems happy enough to ensure that Jack's gherkin supply is fulfilled to his satisfaction. Jack feels kind of awful about the way he's treated Loki, but his ankles are swollen, his back is cramping, he's hungry _all the time_, and if he has to pee one more time this morning, it'll break a world record, he's sure of it. His body and hormones have come to an agreement - _let's settle on extremes only!_ - so he constantly feels either boiling hot or freezing cold, and Jack's almost positive that the kid's trying to kick his way out of his stomach by force.

Loki tries to make him feel better by comparing the similar feelings to when he was pregnant as a mare with Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse that now belonged to his father (Odin rides his grandson into battle, and gives no thought to the fact that if his horse dies, he will be essentially killing his son's child). Despite Loki's intentions, the comparisons simply make Jack go crazy with jealousy. He knows it's irrational, especially considering his own past, but he isn't exactly rational at the moment. Jack feels like every stereotypical pregnant woman rolled into one, and he hates it. He's onto the fifth jar of gherkins when the urge to pee overtakes him again, and he hobbles awkwardly to the nearest bathroom for relief.

He doesn't mean to alarm Loki, he really doesn't, but apparently a scream of surprise will do exactly that, and in a matter of minutes of his water breaking, they're heading for the closest hospital. _Ignore the cats, just get the kid outta me_! Jack screams, his hand squeezing Loki's so tightly he's sure bones will break. It takes almost a full two hours (the Doctor arrives to see what he calls the miracle of the day), and the baby is born via Caesarian. Jack has a scar that is so fine he can't even see it, and they all go home by the end of the day, the baby boy healthy as a horse (_stop laughing, Doctor_). Jack names him Valko (meaning wolf; he's got to be strong with them as parents), but the Doctor announces that his name is Vali (he speaks baby, of course he does), and the boy's real name is forgotten over time until it's natural for even Loki and Jack to call him Vali.

...

Sexy's tired with a capital T. She's not as young as she used to be, and planet hopping for the past 24 hours only serves to remind her of that. She lands on a rift close to the hospital, at the time and year requested by the Doctor due to Jack's pregnancy, and hopes that they won't get into trouble. Really, she should know better than to hope for that, considering her Doctor and his companions, but she's tired enough to hope for it anyway. She sleeps as Jack and Loki head outside in search of more gherkins, and the Doctor goes to rest for an hour or two as well. It's rare for him to rest so soon after landing, but he looks as dizzy as she feels after all of the running about the universe, so Sexy can't blame him for it. She sleeps and for a short while, so does her Doctor.

Sexy wakes up briefly when the three men return with a baby cradled in Loki's arms, and she smiles to herself at the thought of a baby's feet pitter pattering along her floors once more (Sexy doesn't want to focus on the fact that it will only be a short time, doesn't want to spoil it for herself or them), and then goes back to sleep easily enough.

The Asgardian hunters are still on the other side of the planet, consulting with Odin to find out their location. She knows that it will take about a month for them to finally catch up to them, and by then, they'll be elsewhere and elsewhen yet again. For now though, she can rest without a worry in the world, and for once, so can her travellers. It's a nice change from all the constant running, and perhaps when they've all had adequate rest, her lovely Doctor might take it upon himself to change her light bulb.

...

End of the twelfth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	14. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Fourteenth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Thirteen

...

_One month later_

The Doctor's trying to control the TARDIS as she hurtles through space and time. It feels like she's falling rather than flying, Jack's screaming at him, Loki's holding Vali tightly and looking as though he'll kill the Doctor, then bring him back to life just to kill him again for hurting his son. (He decides not to say a thing about his regeneration powers; Loki might really kill him then.) The Doctor's not a miracle worker, he can't control this, not when those Asgardian hunters have hurt his Sexy, his old girl, his first and last companion through space and time. She's trying to be careful, he knows that, he does, but he can't help but join in the chorus of screams for her to do something, to save them, to fix this. The lights flicker violently, then go out completely, plunging them into total darkness. Not even the emergency lights are flashing and that can only mean that something is terribly, awfully wrong.

He takes a shuddering breath as he moves to his old girl's console, planning on seeing what exactly has happened and if he might be able to fix it after all. The emergency lights flash on unexpectedly, and that's the only warning they get before the anti-gravity turns off, and _this_ is what falling really feels like.

The Doctor clings to a rail, Jack takes Vali and clings to a rail, and Loki brings his sceptre out, blue skin glowing in the darkness, and stands perfectly still where he is in the console room. A bright beam of blueish light shoots upwards, and extends until a circle envelopes Loki completely. The circle expands to include Jack and Vali, inching towards the Doctor as well. The Doctor stretches one arm out, and he can feel the tingle of magical power against his fingertips, but then the TARDIS crash lands on the planet, jerking him away from the light abruptly. He screams and sees Loki and Jack disappear with their son, then his world goes dark.

...

Vali's awake and screaming his unhappiness loudly. Jack tends to him, soothing his son, and doesn't bother to look around until he's asleep again a few minutes later. When he looks up, he sees Loki nearby and red mountains in the distance. Jack's not quite sure where they are, but he sees that blood's trickling down the side of Loki's head, and he runs over to check him immediately. It's a head wound, which would explain the amount of blood, but Loki's all right. He heals faster than normal mortals, and Jack uses a baby wipe (produced from one of his many jacket pockets) to clean the blood off him gently as Loki cradles Vali in his arms, calming and soothing their son gently.

Apparently, Loki's made them land on the same planet that the TARDIS crashed on, so they should be able to find the Doctor soon enough. Loki's sceptre is magically connected to his helmet, which is still back in the TARDIS, so they're pointed in the right direction in a matter of seconds. Jack takes the now-sleeping Vali back from Loki and puts him in the baby carrier (he's lucky they were planning to go visiting when the Asgardians attacked, otherwise he wouldn't have been wearing the carrier and this could've been much more awkward, traipsing across an unfamiliar planet - and possibly running if the Asgardians find them - with a baby in his arms). Vali doesn't stir, thankfully, and Jack makes sure his son is secure before they head off to find the Doctor and TARDIS.

There's something familiar about the red planet. It's not Mars - there's grass here, and they weren't even near the Milky Way when the Asgardians caught up - but the planet is red, and Jack feels like he should know this place, he knows he should, but he can't put a finger on it. It's not until they climb to the top of the hill covered in red grass and he sees the city below that Jack realises exactly where they are. He shudders at the sight of the city of Gallifrey, a churning sensation in his stomach that makes him want to be sick. In his carrier, Vali stirs and Jack hurries to ease him, stroking his son's head until he's asleep again. He can't tear his gaze away from the red city below, knowing exactly what will happen here in the Time War.

...

So this is the infamous Gallifrey, the city and planet of the Time Lords. Loki knows all of the tales, but they pale in comparison to the beauty and magnificence of the city. They could never convey what it feels like to have two suns shining down on him, the warmth of the breeze, the joy of children running through the red grass and laughing with ribbons flying out behind them. He turns away from the sight of the brilliantly glinting city and looks at Jack and Vali. Jack's got tears in his eyes and Vali's sleeping peacefully, his tiny hands curled up in Jack's shirt. Loki presses a kiss to his son's head gently, then one to Jack's lips, and they keep walking in the direction the sceptre is pointing.

They can see the TARDIS in the distance, and Loki's hand grips his sceptre tightly as he sees Thor and the Asgardian hunters standing by it. He and Jack hide behind a large rock nearby, Loki not willing to risk his son or lover. He looks out and sees the Asgardians take the Doctor away, heading towards the Gallifreyan city. This can't end well - though Loki's not sure if he means for the Doctor or the Asgardians. After everything he's seen and knows about the Doctor, Loki knows that he was lucky to escape with his life after threatening the Doctor's wellbeing. The Asgardians might not survive this stupid plan of theirs, and Loki can't feel any regret for that. They are hunting him across the Nine Worlds for one transgression (though they might say more, a lot of them weren't his fault, they just blamed him for them: a god of mischief is always easier to blame than to take responsibility for their own damn stupid choices), and he knows they will not show him any mercy when they return to Asgard. The Doctor, on the other hand, has looked after him, forgiven him, and called him a friend, even after he tried to possess the Time Lord; for this, Loki will return his debt and save his friend.

He kisses Jack firmly, gives him the sceptre, and steps out from behind the rock. Loki ignores the hiss of concern from Jack, and uses a small spell to keep him silent and hidden. He will not allow Jack and Vali to be caught. Loki calls out to his brother, who stills suddenly, the Doctor flailing a bit in his firm grasp. Thor turns to face him, his expression caught between relief and wariness. He doesn't trust Loki and knows that he can make copies of himself, so how does he know that this is really Loki before him? Loki doesn't care about Thor's trust issues, but he does care that his brother is holding Mjölnir tighter than he should be. The Doctor's feet are off the ground in Thor's grip, but he manages to find his sonic screwdriver and point it at Loki, revealing with a flash of light and series of beeps that it really is Loki (he seems surprised, as if he hadn't expected Loki to really show up either). Now that they know he is who he says is, Loki trades the Doctor's life for his own. When the Doctor's safe, Loki walks straight to their ship (he doesn't bother asking where they got a Chula warship from, he's just surprised Thor fits in the tiny thing) and lets them take him away.

...

The TARDIS is very annoyed at the way those Asgardian brutes treated her. _First they hurt her while she's minding her own business travelling through space and time, and then the large bulky one hit her! The dent from that ridiculously overcompensating hammer will take a whole week to repair_! The Doctor mutters under his breath, straightening his jacket and skewed bow tie, calling out for Jack and Vali. Jack's inside in a matter of seconds, and Sexy doesn't even have to wait for the Doctor to tell them that they're going to Asgard before she takes off after the Chula warship, damage or not. She'll be able to repair herself when all of this is over, that's what her genetic engine is designed for after all.

After everything that's happened, Sexy's tired and not thinking in her usual wibbly-wobbly way, and they're almost at Asgard when she realises that they can't go there, not just yet. She changes her course abruptly, ignoring the cries of surprise from the two men, and heads to a university graduation where River Song is becoming a Professor. They're overdue for a picnic, and the hair-laden woman will be needed to keep the brutes in line.

...

End of the thirteenth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	15. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Fifteenth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Fourteen

...

_Three months later_

The Doctor hates that he can't land the TARDIS sooner. He knows that the Asgardians will be expecting them to do exactly that: go after Loki with guns (uh... sonic screwdrivers, that is) blazing. Okay, so River might've been the one to point that out to him, because he was planning on doing exactly that, but he has to admit she has a point. The Asgardians have got Heimdallr guarding the bridge, as always, and the god has been watching out for them all of these months, intent on his job. The Asgardians told him to watch out for a blue box with two men inside of it, but they don't know about River. The Doctor keeps his old girl quiet as River distracts Heimdallr with her hallucinogenic lipstick (she'll have to wash her mouth out before kissing him again, that's for sure), and lands the TARDIS where he hopes they won't be seen, since Heimdallr will still be searching the skies for them. (He pretends not to hear when River comes back in saying something about golden teeth.)

His Sexy makes a shuddering sound as she comes to land on Asgard, and after everything they've been through, the Doctor's not overly surprised to find that his poor TARDIS is in desperate need of repair. It looks to be even more than her genetic engine can repair on her own. River has her sonic screwdriver in hand (as well as her guns, tucked away in a holster as well as other places the Doctor discovered once) and she steps out onto Asgard with Jack who is carrying Loki's sceptre, leaving the Doctor to his TARDIS (they'll need to leave quickly, so the repairs are needed sooner rather than later). It's not until some time later when he hears nothing but silence that the Doctor realises they didn't leave Vali behind with him. It's a good thing, that, since the baby doesn't seem to like fish fingers and custard - Vali's got absolutely no appreciation for culinary masterpieces.

There's a wheezing sound from further down in the TARDIS' wiring, and he pats her console gently, telling her everything will be fine. The Doctor believes it, even if this extent of internal and external damages hasn't been seen since the Time War. He lowers himself down into her wiring to continue to fix his old girl.

...

Loki's thinking intently, distancing himself from the emotion and pain he's feeling, just as he has every day for the past three months, and eventually comes to a conclusion: it's very odd to care for someone other than himself. For all of his life, he's always put himself first (no one else did, after all), and not once would he have ever thought of sacrificing himself to save others (his life is always more important). But Jack and Vali are worth the sacrifice, and their lives are just as important as his. (The Doctor too, but Loki might've betrayed him already if not for the fact that Jack and Vali are safe with him.)

He comes back to reality abruptly, and is aware of pain spreading across his face, his mouth filled with blood and the taste of copper. He glares and spits out the mess of blood and spit. He's refusing to answer the questions posed to him (_who did you escape with?, what do they want from Asgard?, are they friends of the Jötun?_) - maybe when they start asking the right questions, he'll deign himself to answer. But then again, probably not, Loki's always been stubborn. Now that he's thinking of someone other than himself, that stubbornness is multiplying. He grins to himself, which only serves to irritate his questioner further, and a chain is wrapped around his neck, intent on squeezing the answers out of him.

The door bursts open just when he thinks he might asphyxiate, a harried soldier telling his inquisitor that Heimdallr's been compromised. Loki collapses against the wall when the chain is loosened, and grins slightly when he hears the news. _Jack and the Doctor are coming for him_. The soldier hasn't finished relaying his news, and continues, telling him that they found the blue box. The Doctor's dragged into the room and thrown beside Loki abruptly. _Okay then, just Jack's coming for them_. He mutters this under his breath, and the Doctor grins and gives a little chuckle. _Just you wait, Loki, you haven't met my wife_. His words are followed by a loud explosion, part of the wall falling away to reveal a blonde bushy-haired woman in the clearing smoke. She immediately shoots his inquisitor with Loki's sceptre, and grins as she looks at the Doctor ('_hello, sweetie', what sort of greeting is that_?). Loki ignores her query on where she can get her own sceptre; he doesn't see Jack or Vali anywhere, and forces himself to stand up, intent on going to find them immediately. The woman introduces herself as River, and takes a moment to heal him with his sceptre (he didn't know it could do that; while the pain's gone, he can still see various bruises littering his body, but it's enough to get him moving pain-free again), before heading back down the corridor to where Jack was detained with Vali. It feels like Loki's heart is in his throat (or maybe that's a swollen neck from the chain) as he leaves his father unconscious in the room behind him and heads with the Doctor and River towards his mother's room.

...

Frigga sees the two foreigners as they pass the dining hall and follows after them. She would normally alert Odin to their presence immediately, or take care of the threat herself, but she does not think these two Midgardians are a threat. Except, they're not really Midgardians, one is from a Midgardian future, and the other... the other is simply intriguing. The woman acts as if she's not aware of Frigga following them, but she knows otherwise. Frigga moves quickly, ushering the two people into a nearby room. She wants to know more about the woman, but then she sees the man - and more importantly, the baby strapped to the man's chest, a baby with her son's eyes - and she knows immediately that she is staring at her grandson. (_Oh, thank all of the stars in the Nine Worlds that it's not a horse this time_.)

Frigga doesn't look away from the baby as she tells the woman where Loki's being kept, and invites the man (he introduces himself as Jack, and the baby as Vali - she wonders if Loki knows his son's name means 'son of Odin') to sit down so they can talk. She can see that Jack's reluctant to do so, but she will not let him leave until she finds out just how the child was born. Jack sits, and she smiles pleasantly, asking if she can see her grandson properly. Frigga leaves no room for a negative answer. There is a loud exploding noise (she'll have to call the builders again with a noise like that, surely), and Jack's out of his seat, Vali still strapped to his chest as he runs for the door to find Loki. Frigga follows immediately, not wanting her first human grandchild to be harmed in the crossfire of whatever will happen.

She catches up to the group in one of the main hallways leading to where Loki was being held, and almost sighs in relief on seeing her son safe, and passionately kissing Jack, Vali held between them gently. She sees the bruises around Loki's neck, along his fingers where they must have been broken, and she wonders exactly what her husband has been doing to their son. Odin had simply said that he was questioning Loki for all of this time, and that she couldn't see her son while he was still refusing to answer, besides Loki didn't want to see her anyway. She immediately knows it's a lie the moment Loki finally sees her, and she doesn't see a betrayer or traitor before her, but Loki, the boy she raised from a child. Odin is waking, she can hear him behind them, and she ushers them out of the corridor and down to where the blue box was taken.

...

The TARDIS is taking longer to heal herself now that the Doctor's been captured, but she's almost finished the main interior repairs thanks to a little help from the Asgardian magic that is exuding from the planet itself. The exterior repairs will have to wait until the Doctor returns, they get off this planet, and he can find the tin of paint to freshen her up.

There's a sudden pulse of magic and something explodes. The pulse of magic is strong, and it actually contributes to the last piece of magic and engineering that Sexy needs to finish her internal repairs. She's good to go the moment the Doctor arrives with everyone else in tow. Thankfully, Sexy doesn't have to wait long for her four (and a half) travellers to arrive, but they're accompanied by another woman (honestly, does the Doctor just pick people up like stray animals?), and she doesn't quite know if she's meant to leave with her on board as well, so she waits for the Doctor's instructions.

It seems that the Doctor is intent on leaving with this other woman as well, so she takes on his coordinates and begins her usual routine, making sure they can actually go to that planet at that particular time. The other woman is startled by Sexy's inner appearance (they always are), but they don't have time for her to go and come back inside with the usual exclamation because Sexy's already fading. The woman screams abruptly when she realises what's happening, she can't leave her husband - they'll think she's been kidnapped and will never stop looking. Sexy knows she's right and stops fading immediately. The woman kisses Loki and Vali, and hugs Jack, then leaves to make sure they will not be hunted again. Sexy really does hope that she can convince the Asgardian hunters to stop hunting them; she needs a few days of rest to let her paint settle. River laughs as they leave, declaring the whole day to have been an absolute picnic.

...

End of the fourteenth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	16. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Sixteenth day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Chapter Fifteen

...

The Doctor lands his old girl on a planet as far away from Asgard as possible, deciding to take all necessary precautions until it's clear whether Frigga's been successful in calling the hunters off or not. Now that River's been talking about picnics, it makes him realise that he's hungry, and he drags everyone out for food (not as good as his cooking, of course). Loki eats like a man starved (in all probability, he is), Jack feeds Vali between his own mouthfuls of food, and River somehow manages to eat _soup_ suggestively.

When they're back in the TARDIS, Jack pulls Loki to their room to rest, leaving Vali in the Doctor's care. (Vali's not convinced they're going to rest, and neither's the Doctor, really.) He sets the TARDIS coordinates to take River back to Luna University. She keeps asking, so the Doctor agrees to take River to the Singing Towers of Darillium, yet again, but as always, he refuses to specify when. His hearts break when he sees her cradling Vali and kissing the baby goodbye, and he could imagine she would be a terrific mother, even though she calls herself a psychopath (he was a pretty good father for a madman - he hopes).

River kisses him hotly and he responds in kind (Vali giggles, and _hey!_ _They do _**_not_**_ look like beans being mushed together, thank you very much_!), his hands threading in her hair as she bites his bottom lip playfully. She pulls away, a wicked grin on her face and naughty gleam in her eyes. It seems the university can wait another hour or two... He doesn't bother pulling the lever and pushing the button just yet, the planet they're on will do just fine for now. A nursery appears near the console room, and they leave Vali in Sexy's care, River laughing as she pulls the Doctor to her by his bow tie.

...

Jack touches Loki's bruises gently. He knows they're not painful (Loki murmured something about his sceptre healing him), but they're many and varied, and he hates that they weren't able to save him from this pain sooner. Loki stirs at his touch, rolling onto his side to press a kiss to Jack's lips, a grin tugging at his own. Jack curls up in Loki's embrace, and tries not to think about everything that could have gone wrong. All that matters is that Loki's here and safe with him and Vali again. He makes himself think about everything that's led up to this moment, how he wouldn't be here if he hadn't joined the Time Agency (or broken the rules and then gone on the run from said Time Agency). He gives a little chuckle, realising that it's been almost two full years since he first started running from his old employer. Loki raises an eyebrow at him, but Jack just shakes his head and pulls him close for another kiss.

They drift off to sleep in each other's arms, Jack waking blearily a few hours later when he hears Vali crying. It's his turn, and Loki needs as much rest as he can get after his ordeal, so he slips out of Loki's embrace and stumbles out of the room, tugging a loose pair of pants on along the way. (The Doctor has a way of going a delightful red colour when he knows Jack's been naked anywhere on the TARDIS.) Vali's not hungry or tired, and his diaper's clean (Jack wants to laugh at the memory of Loki changing Vali's first diaper; he treated it like a nuclear warhead, something to be in fear and awe of at the same time), and those big green eyes look up at him, saying that he wants to be held. Jack picks Vali up with a shake of his head - _just wait until he's grown, his boy's going to be a heartbreaker_ - and decides to take a walk around the TARDIS to try and settle him again.

An hour later, Jack's patience is wearing thin. Vali refuses to sleep and he immediately starts crying if Jack even so much as tries to put him down. His arms are aching from being in the same position for all of this time. He keeps rocking Vali gently, and eventually decides to take him outside. Maybe the fresh air will do them both some good. Jack goes to the console room and heads to the door. Usually, the TARDIS door will open for him, but it seems the door's been locked this time, and Jack knows the key's in his pocket. He sighs, and softly tells Vali he's just going to get the key out of his pocket and they'll be able to go outside together. He sets his son down on a console chair carefully, hopes that Vali won't start crying, and jogs back over to the door to unlock it. Jack pokes his head out of the open door to see where they are, and grins at the sight of the sunset he's caught a glimpse of. There's a cool breeze, and he steps outside quickly to see what the temperature is like - he might have to get Vali's little jacket if it's too cold (it's a gorgeous thing, navy blue with bright shiny silver buttons and warm sheepskin on the inside). He doesn't see the people coming up behind him (their shadows stretch out behind them and the wind blows in the opposite direction, with his scent on them instead), and then he's captured, knocked to the ground and cuffed. In the TARDIS, he can hear Vali crying loudly, and closes his eyes tightly, hoping his son will be all right. Then his captors hit him one more time and his world goes dark.

...

Loki wakes to the sound of Vali screaming his little lungs out (_he might have to ask the Doctor to check Vali again, surely mortals don't have _**_this_**_ sort of lung capacity_?). Loki puts his arm out, intent on telling Jack it's his turn, only to realise that Jack isn't there. _Jack isn't beside him, and Vali is still screaming. Something's wrong_. He sits up abruptly, ignoring the tangled mess his hair has become, and runs out of the bedroom, barely remembering to grab a robe on the way. He comes to an abrupt stop in the console room to find the Doctor and River just arriving as well, lipstick smears on both of their faces and the Doctor's bow tie is tied around his wrist. More importantly, Jack is nowhere to be seen. After Loki takes Vali in his arms to settle him, the Doctor asks Vali what's happened, his face turning grim at the answer. He doesn't translate what Vali says, instead he heads for the doors, pointing his sonic screwdriver outside. Loki has to demand answers _twice_ before the Doctor replies: Jack's been kidnapped. Loki feels as though the ground has disappeared from beneath his feet, and goes to get his sceptre. He'll **destroy** Asgard for this.

By the time Loki returns to the console room, he's dressed in his green and black outfit, has his helmet and boots on, his sceptre in hand, and Vali is strapped to his chest in the baby carrier. He will get Jack back from the Asgardian hunters and they will _pay_. The Doctor seems to realise that he's set for war, and informs him that it's not the Asgardians. Frigga must have convinced Odin to leave them alone, because there's not been a peep from them since they left Asgard. No, the people that took Jack are from somewhere - and somewhen - else entirely. It seems the Time Agency has finally found Jack, and they've taken him back to his own future time. Loki doesn't even have to ask the Doctor, they're already on their way to get Jack back. They land in the future, right in the Time Agency building, and Loki doesn't care who he hurts to get to Jack. He makes his way through the corridors, his sceptre glowing, and people are kneeling before him and giving him every answer to every question (just as it should be, just as it always should have been) and Loki is soon standing in front of a door that has Jack locked inside of it. He knows he's too angry, and might blast the door off its hinges and hurt Jack, so the Doctor takes over the door opening duty (he notices that River looks at him curiously, as if she's never seen Loki before, but he doesn't have time to question her as the door is finally opened). The moment he opens the door, he hears Jack screaming.

Loki's burst inside the room in a blaze of blue light before he realises what he's done, and he sees Jack on a chair, a similar helmet the Doctor had used to return to his body on his head. He's screaming, he's in pain, and his body is arching off the chair to the point where his back might actually break. Loki turns to the people who are doing this to Jack and growls, loudly and angrily, all emotion and no thought. His sceptre destroys the machine they're using, the three white-coats hitting the wall across the room, and Jack slumps back down on the chair, his body twitching slightly. Loki hurries over to check on him, the Doctor and River a step behind him. Jack groans (_he's alive, thank the All-Mother_), and manages to open his eyes blearily. He rubs his eyes and smiles up at Loki almost suggestively as he asks who he is. There's not a hint of recognition in those beautiful blue eyes of his, and Loki staggers back at the force of the emotion that hits his chest. _Jack doesn't know who he is, and he doesn't even know his own son_.

...

River hasn't been travelling with them for long, but she's almost come to think of Jack and Loki as the male versions of herself and the Doctor. Before today, she would have thought of Jack as being her counterpart and Loki as the Doctor's, but that was before she saw the lengths Loki would go to in order to save Jack. Right now, however, with his heart breaking and tears running down his face without him seeming to notice, Loki is nothing more than a man who has had his heart torn to pieces. She can definitely relate to the feeling, and she takes it upon herself to revive one of the white-coats to demand answers. (The man doesn't kneel to her as others did to Loki, but River still gets the answers, and that's enough for her right now.) Two years have been removed from Jack's memory: ever since he's been running from the Time Agency. He was their poster boy (The Face of Boe) and they are a for-profit business dealing in time itself. There was no way they would let him leave them the way he did, and they've been waiting for him to reveal himself alone for all of this time. He finally did, and he was brought straight here to undergo the necessary memory extraction. Jack was their best Time Agent, and he will be again. He has one stage left of his rehabilitation: a mandatory two-week loop set for a period of five years with his future partner at the Time Agency. (It's now done to all of their agents in order to get them to trust each other; time travel is a particularly nasty business, and they need someone to keep them human - and loyal to the Time Agency - on the other side of it all.) When all of her questions are answered to her satisfaction, River knocks the man out again and goes over to where the Doctor is with Jack and Loki.

Unlike the Doctor's memory extraction, Jack's hasn't come with a fob watch, and they can't see anything that might hold his memories. River turns the room inside out with Loki's help, and even revives a white-coat again, but it's to no avail: Jack's memories seem to be gone. The Doctor sets something on his sonic screwdriver, points it at Jack and after a buzzing sound, the man slumps back on the chair peacefully, but River can see that he's still awake. The Doctor pulls Loki over to Jack then, and tells him to start talking. Loki's look of confusion probably mirrors River's own one, and the Doctor sighs, then agrees with Vali about simple human minds (River's surprised Loki doesn't hurt him for that, her hand already on her gun to defend her husband), before telling Loki that he's opened a small window in Jack's mind. If he tells him the right story, it might have a chance of sticking in his head, even without the full memory to support it. Loki nods and starts talking about prison and hypervodkas (_of all things, that's what he chooses_?!), his story ending with gherkins and Vali's birth. Jack laughs at the hypervodka story, but by the end he looks at Vali thoughtfully. River hopes he'll remember everything on his own, for all their sakes. If Loki's even half as psychotic as she is, he'll tear the place apart in his grief and anger.

An alarm sounds and a red light flashes. The door closes behind them, a hiss of air as it locks firmly. Then there's another hiss, this time not of air, and River suddenly finds it hard to breathe. She covers her mouth the best she can and ducks low, trying not to inhale whatever is being pumped into the room. It doesn't work as well as she hopes, and she sees Jack, the Doctor, and Loki all drop in a matter of seconds. River rushes over as fast as she can while crouched low, and is relieved to see that they're just asleep. The room spins wildly, her head swims dangerously, and then she's falling and out like a light.

...

End of the fifteenth chapter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.


	17. Epilogue

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or the Avengers.

Seventeenth and final day of the 17 days of Christmas!

_Read on, oh faithful ones_...

...

Epilogue

...

Sexy doesn't like her Doctor - or his companions (mostly) - being hurt. It means he flies her unsteadily and there's enough of _that_ when he _hasn't_ been drugged and knocked unconscious. They weren't aiming to make a quiet entrance to the Time Agency, so she's parked at the end of a hallway, bright blue and her light glowing. Oddly enough, despite being in a building full of time-travel-aware people, she's still not regarded as anything special. Sexy will forgive them for the slight this time around, since she's able to see exactly what happens to the Doctor and his companions from her position. They wake up one by one, only to find that Jack's not in the room with them. Loki attempts to make the white-coats regret that decision (she suspects they already do, what with the irreparable damage he's already done to their rehabilitation room), but they've done something to suppress his power, so it's all futile. They are offered a choice: leave Jack and go, or be removed from history completely. The Doctor seems to want the second choice, but Sexy knows that the white-coats mean more than just erasing their names from history: they're going to go back to the point of conception (maybe even further to when their parents meet), and stop them from ever being born. The Doctor's not quite so keen on that choice now, and they all go quiet as they think of the implications. Entire universes would blink out of existence, and so many races would either be enslaved or eradicated completely, and that's just because of River's timeline. Sleipnir would not have been born, and the Jötun giants would have overtaken Asgard at Odin's bet that he had the fastest horse, the Nine Worlds falling because Loki was not born. The stars themselves will disappear from the sky, entire worlds will become nothing more than fragments of stardust, and the Earth will be overrun or destroyed completely because of the Doctor's timeline. She wants to believe that the white-coats of the Time Agency are bluffing, but Sexy's not even sure that they're really aware of who they have captured, and stupidity such as this is rarely a bluff.

River's the first to agree to let Jack stay - despite Loki's look of outrage and betrayal - and it is with a great reluctance that the Doctor agrees as well. Loki holds out for another ... three, four, five minutes until he agrees with a broken voice, his eyes closed as if that will stop his pain from showing. They are released from their binds (Loki attempts to use his magic once more, but it is still blocked somehow) and led directly down to where Sexy's waiting. It seems that she was not overlooked after all. She's quiet as they all file inside, her door closing firmly behind them. (In another area of the Time Academy, Jack's put in his set two-week loop with the future John Hart, and their tale begins.) Loki goes off to change Vali, and River goes after him to explain: she's met Jack in the future, as has the Doctor, and what's most important is that Jack lives. _In the future, he knows that the Time Agency erased his memory, even though he doesn't know why or what happens in those two years, but he will always be searching for the answers, he will always be searching for Loki and Vali, and isn't that enough? The possibility that they will find each other again_? Loki agrees, but Sexy can see that he doesn't mean it, not really. He wants Jack with him as much as the Doctor and River want to be together, but they can't.

The Doctor's unnervingly quiet as he puts in a new set of coordinates, her lever's pulled and button's pushed, and Sexy does the only thing she can do to try and make him feel better: follows his coordinates to the letter.

...

The Doctor returns River to Luna University. Before she leaves, River tells him that she's been commissioned to go to the Library by Strackman Lux, she leaves in three weeks, and she hopes that she'll see him again before then. The Doctor nods and promises that the next time he sees her, he'll take her to the Singing Towers of Darillium. Her responding smile is brilliant, but his hearts break all over again, and the Doctor can't bring himself to do anything but press a firm kiss to River's lips.

The TARDIS fills with silence after her exit, and Loki looks as depressed as the Doctor feels. He can't blame him, but the Doctor decides that he might be able to make Loki feel a bit happier, and offers to take him and Vali anywhere in the 'verse. He's more than surprised when Loki asks to go back to Asgard - _they just rescued him from there_! - and Loki sighs, nods, and cradles Vali to his chest gently. He can't do this without Jack; he needs someone to keep him sane, to keep him ... (he laughs a little here, as if he cannot believe what he's about to say) ... _human_. Vali deserves better than to be raised by him, and Loki knows that Frigga will ensure that her grandson gets that. The Doctor nods a little sadly, and as he doubts that Loki will stay on with him, no matter how many times he's been a father, father-figure, and grandfather (let's not get into the great-grandfathers), and he reluctantly agrees to Loki's wish. They are both quiet as they set off for Asgard for the second time in as many days.

...

Loki's glad that the Doctor's brought him back to Asgard a few days after his escape - while he's not scared of Odin, he has no desire to return while the All-Father's raging (part of his rage is humiliation at being beaten by a woman, and a Midgardian woman at that, but Odin would never admit it). Instead, the TARDIS is set down a few metres away from where Heimdallr's guarding the Bifrost bridge. Loki tries to mentally prepare himself for the welcome he's sure to get (another round with a chain in his cell, most likely), but gets distracted by the sound of the Doctor and Vali laughing, playing with a foil horse with eight legs (he'll have to introduce Vali to Sleipnir when he's released from his cell). All too soon, Loki steps out of the TARDIS with Vali strapped to his chest, his helmet adorning his head, his sceptre slung across his back, and his boots firmly tied (he remembers the way Jack tied them for him, and finds that it's a much more comfortable fit). The TARDIS disappears behind him, neither Loki nor the Doctor being one for goodbyes, and he makes his way to where Heimdallr is guarding the newly-repaird Bifrost. Its colours reflect brilliantly, Vali laughing at the sight and trying to catch the colours. Loki smiles at the sound and strokes Vali's head gently before taking a deep breath to calm himself. He gives a brief nod to Heimdallr as he approaches, who simply stares at him in a mix of shock, surprise, and ... respect? Loki's rarely seen that emotion directed towards him before. Heimdallr does as he requests and calls for Frigga. Loki doesn't have to wait long before his mother arrives with Eir, his mother's companion and, fortunately, a healer. Eir sets about making sure that all of Loki's wounds have healed while Frigga tells Heimdallr that calling Thor and Odin really isn't necessary; Loki interrupts her to say that he's come back to face his trial, so long as Vali will not be harmed. Eir stops removing one of his larger bruises in surprise, but Frigga simply nods and smiles at him warmly. When he's bruise-free once more, Frigga hugs Loki as if he's been gone for years rather than just a few days. She coos over Vali, even as she leads Loki back towards Valhalla, Eir following a few steps behind.

A few days later, Loki's still confined to his cell awaiting Odin's judgement (Frigga insists on calling it his room, but while he's locked inside and unable to leave, it's a cell, no matter how luxurious or gilded it may be). He watches Vali out of the window of his cell as his son plays with Frigga, and he hopes that somewhere in the Nine Worlds, Jack is just as safe and happy as their son is at that moment. Loki knows that Jack will be out there discovering more of the Nine Worlds than he's ever dreamed of, and he tells himself that he doesn't mind that he's not discovering it right there along with him. It's a lie, of course, but one that he can believe (it's far easier to believe his own lies than someone else's, but isn't it always?). If not believe, then Loki can certainly swallow the lie until the time when he can leave this place to find his beloved Midgardian once more. Vali's giggling laughter distracts Loki from his thoughts, and there's an ache in his chest as he hopes that his son will not be condemned because of who his father is, just as Loki has been for all of his life. Vali - his little wolf - has Jack's dimple-cheeked smile, and Loki's eyes, but he is an innocent in all of this, and Loki truly hopes that he stays that way.

...

Jack wakes up from a dream, and John stirs beside him, but keeps sleeping and doesn't wake as well. They're both naked (it's not the first nor last time - this is their fourth year stuck in the same two-week loop of time - there's still a few positions Jack has yet to try out with his lover), but Jack's the only one sweating, the only one with a pounding heart, his blood rushing through his veins as he tries to remember exactly what his dream was about. He's dreamed this before, over and over nearly every night for the past four years, but somehow, this time the dream felt clearer than the previous ones. Jack always remembers the four hypervodkas and two executioners (it caused him to write a letter to them on a whim two years ago; he received a _very_ detailed reply, and that memory's returned in full force since then), but the next part of his dream is what's hazy. Jack dreams that he's pregnant, and the cravings, the pain, the swelling and aching, the absolute love filling his chest is all so clear that he knows it must be a memory. He dreams of being pregnant, but even in his dream, Jack can't remember what happened to the child, or who the father was. He finds the faint scar along his stomach, and his fingers trail along it slowly. He knows that the Time Agency has erased his memory, and as soon as he gets out of this time loop, he's escaping. The very second he has the leather-strapped time vortex manipulator on his arm, Jack is going to find out what happened, and he won't stop searching until he has all of his questions answered.

Three years later, Jack comes across a Chula warship just sitting in a junkyard, right beside a Chula ambulance. He steals it away immediately, knowing exactly what he wants to do for his next con. The warship's not the largest ship in the world, but he's not a very bulky being, so it's more than enough for Jack. He makes sure the inside of the ship is fit for human use - the Chula are an alien race with multiple arms, and while that's a bonus when he's in bed with one, it makes it harder to fly their ships while he's only equipped with two. Still, he manages to adjust the wiring in some places and set up a remote control until it's eventually _perfect_ for his con. The inside is all the usual Chula colours: red, blue, and a sort of scary colour between puce and neon-puce; Jack knows he won't survive driving this thing without getting the mother of all migraines, so he delays his con for a day while he paints it (it's a space-time vessel, so he could delay it even longer if he needs, really). Black, green and gold are his chosen colours, and something tugs at his mind, golden curves and bright blue skin, and he almost snaps the paint hose in half in utter frustration at yet _another_ half-forgotten memory. He gets into the Chula warship, closing the door with more force than necessary, and sets off with the ambulance attached to the back, heading down for London, Earth, circa 1941. Jack has a few Time Agents to ensnare with these bad boys, and maybe he'll get closer to knowing the truth about the time that was wiped from his mind.

...

The TARDIS makes a quick detour into Asgard while everyone's distracted by Loki's return. The Doctor doesn't seem to understand why until he sees the small Chula warship sitting in the garden, looking awfully out of place. Sexy sees his grin and wants to grin in return as he hooks the Chula warship to her. Once her beloved Doctor's inside again, she takes off for a faraway planet where a Chula ambulance is just waiting for its accompanying warship to join it. It doesn't take long at all, and the Doctor seems much more cheerful when the two Chula vessels are sitting side by side on the old junkyard. He closes her door with a dramatic fling of his arm (_now, there's the Doctor she ran away with!_), and presses a few buttons here and there so she can show him all of the available information on Clara Oswin Oswald: the Impossible Girl, and the next adventure on the list. Sexy can't deny him this, even though she knows that the heartbreak Clara will cause him will rival even that of River's. (Clara won't be a romantic attachment, she will never compare to River for the Doctor, but he will see her as a younger sister or daughter even; the daughter the Doctor and River could have had together, and that will make his pain so much more hearts-wrenching.)

Sexy fades away from the junkyard planet, knowing that it holds the keys to Jack's future. She knows that one day, he will meet Loki again, and more importantly, Jack will remember their past together. It's a long time coming, but for Jack and Loki, the adventure's just begun, and it will be nothing short of interesting.

...

The end.

...

Thank you to everyone for reading. I hope you have enjoyed the story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Happy holidays and a Merry Christmas to all!


End file.
